On release date for The Blinding Knife, the second volume of Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series, the author, through the Orbit Books blog, has news about a new addition to the series, a fourth (and supposedly final) volume to the series:

I’m happy to tell you that the Lightbringer Series will be four books. (No, don’t worry, I’m not floating down the Never-Ending Series River, though yes, I do feel the current!) I was always torn between three books and four for this series, and as I got working on book three, I realized I was going to have to cut way too much great stuff to fit the story into three books, so Orbit and I have agreed to a fourth book. Progress on the next one has been fantastic.

While it’s always disconcerting to hear that a Fantasy series ‘needs’ to be expanded, in light of the ‘Never-Ending Series River’ that Weeks mentions, especially a successful one, like Weeks’, I’m more confident than usual about this one. Weeks has proven through five novels that he crams more content, character development, action and plot into each volume of his series than most similar authors, so I don’t forsee a problem with turgid, meandering volumes that have ruined other Epic Fantasy series. And, hey, a fourth Lightbringer just means more fun for the rest of us, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

The possibility of four volumes has been in my mind since I finished Black Prism. I told my editor at the last second to change the cover. In the US/Canada, the change went through: Black Prism is book one of the “Lightbringer Series”; the UK/Aus didn’t get word in time, so their Black Prism says book one of the “Lightbringer Trilogy.”

I remember that. I’ve always thought of the series as being four or five books long (though, at the end of the first, it was looking like it could be seven books long, given the gems in the hilt of the knife!), but it’s nice to have it confirmed. Thanks, Brent.

I actually kind of like the Never Ending Series River, as long as each section of the river is exciting and necessary, and doesn’t get boring. But I am aware that I’m definitely in the minority. At any rate, Great News!!

Given my only real criticism of The Night Angel trilogy is that I felt there should have been a 4th book, that the 3rd was cramped; I would much rather see Mr. Weeks expand the series rather than cram it into a trilogy. As Aidan mentioned, Mr. Weeks is already a very up tempo writer. I can’t imagine him writing “slow”.

I’ve read the Black Prism, the Blinding Knife and the Broken Eye and am looking forward to the next book but can’t find it. I thought it was named the Blood Mirror but nobody seems to know anything about it. Has it been written and is it in print? If not when will it be coming out and will the title be Blood Mirror?

I’m in the same situaton as Beverley – has book 4 been published yet or not and, if not,when is it due? There are plenty of mentions of it as the Blood Mirror but it is certainly not available on Amazon (not on their UK website or on their French one -the latter being the only one I can use).